Decision-Maker Quiz to Find Teachers Who Know How to Act on Global Economy Imperatives

by Susan Ohanian, who does not own a SmartPhone or participate in FaceBook This questionnaire, a survey of skills needed in today's education marketplace, facilitates an individual participant's ranking of eligibility for grants from:  Accelerated Reader Achieve Inc all4ed American Federation of Teachers Amplify American Legislative Exchange Council Annenberg Institute for School Reform ASCD Aspen Institute Bellwether Education Partners Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation Brookings Institution Business Roundtable Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching Center for American Progress Center for Teaching Quality Chic-Fil-A  Chicago Teachers Union Quest Center, Clean Underwear Pedagogy College Board Council of Chief State School Officers Council of Great City Schools Danielson Group: The Framework  Michael and Susan Dell Foundation Democrats for Education Reform  Department of Pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Education Trust Editorial Projects in Education Inc (Education Week) Education Writers Association Thomas Fordham Institute Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Harvard University Program on Education Policy and Governance Helmsley Charitable Trust Hillary Clinton Inc. Hoover Institute The Hunt Institute  Institute for Education Sciences Learning First Alliance LearnZillion McKinsey & Company National Center on Education and Economy National Congress of Parents and Teachers (PTA) National Governors Association Center for Best Practices NEA New America Foundation New Leaders New Teacher Project Inc. New Venture Fund New York Times editorial board Partnership for 21st Century Skills Pearson USA  Preva Group, LLC Relay Graduate School of Education Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Rubrics Inc. William E. Simon Foundation  Southern Regional Education Board Stanford University for Opportunity Policy in Education Stand for Children State Farm  Strategic Management of Human Capital Student Achievement Partners/Achieve the Core Success Academy Charter Schools Teach for America Teachscape Teaching Channel TNTP University of Texas at Austin--Charles A. Dana Center       Urban Education Leadership Program, University of Illinois US Chamber of Commerce US Department of Education US DOE Delivery Institute US News & World Report College Rankings Wallace Foundation Walton Family Foundation

[1] Training students to respect and obey authority must be the critical teacher imperative.

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[2]  Students need to work harder and take more responsibility.

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[3]  Donald Trump could gain education chops by choosing Angela Duckworth as a running mate.

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[4] Successful corporate leaders are the most critical role models for student success in today's competitive world.

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[5] A strong, decisive principal is the fundamental element in a teacher’s classroom success.

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[6]   Successful teachers focus on research-based outcome analytics to plan and evaluate their lessons.

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[7]   We need Federal accountability laws that zero in on students' self-sustaining skills and attitudes.

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[8]  What teachers need most, more than laws and money, are forward-looking, fast-track entrepreneurial leaders to show the way.

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9] Successful lesson plans based on critical analysis of student skill assessment outcomes should be maintained in fire-resistant, self-charging, tamper-proof receptacles containing automatic shut-off valve to prevent over-charging.

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[10]  Students need a research-based understanding of brain function showing them how concentrated effort changes their brains and helps them develop a growth mindset.

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[11]   "You can't manage what you don't measure" is the teaching imperative for instilling a substantial and sustained drive for excellence in how students think, act, and feel.

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[12]   Teachers must be clear and bold about data, using it to ensure that all students are performing at high levels at all times.

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[13] Colleges of education must reform, offering more courses in classroom management and fewer in child psychology and the political foundations of US public education.

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[14] The most important thing we can teach children is to work hard.

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[15] Most of our social problems are caused by people who haven't learned to take responsibility for their own lives.

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[16]   More jobs in the twenty-first century require higher order thinking skills than did jobs of the past.

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[17] The successful teacher  avoids controversy and promotes positive attitudes.

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[18] In today's competitive Global Economy, it is more imperative for students to learn computer coding than foreign language.

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[19]    A teacher's failure to acknowledge that all children must master high level critical thinking skills condemns some children to an environment ow low expectations and unemployment.

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[20] People can be divided into two distinct classes: those who have grit and those who don’t.

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[21 Implementing personalized, cutting-edge, blue-ribbon, networked collaborative solutions must be the priority of every teacher.

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[22]   Rewarding those teacher who produce best-performing education output must be the goal of every education management entity.

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[23] No difficulty can hold  back those teachers who  have enough determination.

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[24]  The US Department of Education must take the lead in institutionalizing world class technology-based new economy skills mandates, starting in pre-pre-K.

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25]   The world would would be a better place if children entered kindergarten knowing Cursive and their times tables.

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Score Analysis

25:   Lead an Opt Out movement in your community.

26-50:  Take a day off and read Captain Underpants. Then write 15  letters to newspapers.

51-75:  Throw off your fear, and do what you know is right.

76-100: Cancel your subscription to Education Week and the Wall Street Journal and stop reading New York Times editorials.

101-125  Admit that Teach for American didn't offer squat in preparing you for teaching but did provide an excellent pathway to corporate ascendancy.

126-150  Apply for a job at KIPP.

"Ephemeral Teacher Swarms" aka Part-Time Temps

If you think that TFA is the only corporate game in town intended to de-professionalize teaching and crush public education, think again.  The privateers have more schemes ready to launch as the TFA bubble loses gas, and here is just one of them from the CBE-based KnowledgeWorks, which is another Gates hothouse item that he hopes will grow to choke out public space.  

I suppose it is only appropriate that, as the planet dies from greed, poison, and neglect, some of our Ivy League under-employed and thoroughly positivized millennials should spend their days and earn their bread by coming up with privatizing schemes for Bill Gates that are redolent the rhetoric of eco-consciousness.  

This document and the clip below is aflutter with "stewardship" and "learning ecosystem" talk.  By far, my favorite new fragmented teacher role is "data steward." 

Seven Possible Educator Roles 

To help education stakeholders imagine what kinds of educator roles might contribute to flexible and rigorous learning ecosystems that enable both learners and the adults supporting them to thrive, this paper explores seven possible educator roles.

1. (1)  Learning Pathway Designer – Works with students, parents, and learning journey mentors6 to set learning goals, track students’ progress and pacing, and model potential sequences of activities that support learning experiences aligned with competencies. 
   
   
2. (2)  Competency Tracker – Tags and maps community-based learning opportunities by the competencies they address in order to support the development of recon gurable personalized learning pathways and school formats. 
   
   
3. (3)  Pop-Up Reality Producer – Works with educators, subject matter experts, story developers, and game designers to produce pervasive learning extravaganzas that engage learners in ow states7 and help them develop relevant skills, academic competencies, and knowhow. 
   
   
4. (4)  Social Innovation Portfolio Director – Builds networks in support of meaningful service-based learning and community impact by linking student action-learning groups seeking to develop core skills and knowledge with organizations seeking creative solutions. 
   
   
5. (5)  Learning Naturalist – Designs and deploys assessment protocols that capture evidence of learning in students’ diverse learning environments and contexts. 
   
   
6. (6)  Micro-Credential Analyst – Provides trusted, research-based evaluations and audits of micro- credential options and digital portfolio platforms in order to provide learners and institutions with comparative quality assurance metrics. 
   
   
7. (7)  Data Steward – Acts as a third-party information trustee to ensure responsible and ethical use of personal data and to maintain broader education data system integrity and effective application through purposeful analytics.
   

Some of these roles would be likely to involve full-time employment for a single organization, while others could reaect more ad hoc, network-based employment structures, at least for some of the people occupying them. Some of the roles might attract current teachers and administrators; others might attract people from other backgrounds, including the data sciences, anthropology and ethnography, neuropsychology, and media design. 

Regardless of an individual’s employment arrangements or background, educator swarms will likely form to meet the needs of individual learners or cohorts of learners. Educator swarms would be flexible and often temporary teams of educators that configured to meet learners’ needs and then reconfigured differently as needs shifted. Those swarms could span organizational boundaries as well as the line that we draw today between the formal and informal or community-based learning sectors. Furthermore, the configurations of future educator swarms could be far more ephemeral than many of today’s teaching assignments.

Talking about Teaching in KIPP Model Schools: Interview with Sid Glassner

Talking about the "No Excuses" Schools. Conducted on February 25:

Police Brutality at Reach Partnership High in Baltimore

Story here.

Disturbing new footage shows a high school police officer violently slapping a Black student.More details here: http://attn.link/1TV7dh0
Posted by ATTN: on Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Making a Buck Off Reading

 by Susan Ohanian

 

                                                                                        MARCH IS

                                                                       NATIONAL READING MONTH

 

Sound the trumpets! An e-mail announcement from the Orlando Sentinel invites me to Celebrate National Reading Month with them--and get "Up to 25% Off Select Books." A few minutes later I receive the same announcement from the Chicago Tribune, proof that I get mail from too many newspapers. 

Maybe I'm being petty to complain that I find it odd that this Celebration of Reading features a cookbook. I like cookbooks as much as the next person but I see them as something one noses around in--while in the kitchen. I've never thought of taking one to the sofa in front of the fireplace for two hours of reading. The book trumpeted by the Tribune media group happens to be a collection of columns by a Tribune columnist--and copyrighted by the Tribune.

Each paper in the Tribune media group also offers a book or two on a local theme: For Orlando, it's Purple Reign: Orlando City's Inaugural 2015 Major League Soccer Season and The Dolphins at 50. Of course they published both. For Chicago, it's a book about the Black Hawks and an e-book by Clarence Page, copyrighted by the Tribune. A Baltimore Sun Newspaper Book, Iron Man: Cal Ripken Jr's Historic Career comes in at $39.99, discounted from $59,99, Somewhat pricey for 89 pages. But the Newspaper Books offered by the Chicago Tribune cost even more.

The Baltimore Sun is unique in offering a few books one might find on conventional reading lists: There's a thriller and a story set in Raj India--both by former newspaper staffers (who even hold the copyrights--so there's no extra lucre here for the newspaper). The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood is set in Baltimore and was a New York Times book of the year--in 1998. There's also a book by Baltimore native Tom Clancy and a classic by another author with Baltimore connections, Zora Neal Hurston. One can only wonder why, having taken this approach the paper didn't give a nod to Baltimore transplant Ann Tyler. And H. L. Mencken is still worth reading. 

But hats off to someone at the Baltimore Sun who made an actual effort, small as it may be, to connect a celebration of reading with the city. 

Books fall to the wayside in an onslaught of other merchandise expressing enthusiasm for reading: sandstone coasters, tote bags, bomber hats, plush hats, sweatshirts, T-shirts galore. A hoodie will set you back $52 + tax and shipping. These newspapers, as well as their kissing kin at the Los Angeles Times, also offer coffee mugs in white, yellow, maroon, green, and black--all with the slogan "Books Better Than People." A set of mugs in the same colors declares "Go Away, I'm Reading!" 

Yes, the Tribune media group is eager to celebrate reading--if there's a chance to  make a buck or two off the enterprise.

Interviewed by Doug Storm on "Interchange" at WFHB

Get the audio here:

Interchange – “No Excuses” Schools: Broken Windows Theory Goes to School
March 1, 2016    Interchange, News, Public Affairs

I’m joined by author and educator Jim Horn to discuss his latest book, Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through No Excuses Teaching. Horn explores the ideological contexts for the creation and spread of “no excuses” charter schools with a primary focus on the Knowledge Is Power Program or KIPP.

“No Excuses” means schooling that focuses on psychological interventions aimed to alter children’s neurological and behavioral schemas in order to affect socio-cultural values and behaviors. In corporate charter world it also means No Oversight.

Work Hard, Be Hard, examines the convergence of neoliberal politics and the aggressive activities of the business and philanthropic communities in modern education reform. Horn also explores Teach for America as the corollary organization supplying the labor force required to deal with the high levels of teacher attrition in these schools.

GUEST
Jim Horn is Professor of Educational Leadership at Cambridge College, Cambridge, MA. He has published widely on theoretical and practical issues related to education, and with co-author, Denise Wilburn, he published The Mismeasure of Education in 2013. He also has been an education blogger at Schools Matter since 2005. Jim joins us via Skype this evening.

MUSIC
“The Headmaster Ritual” by the Smiths
“Gwan a School” by Sister Nancy
“We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37)” by Peter Gabriel
“Starfish and Coffee” by Prince

Play
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:12 — 54.2MB)

States Rights and ESSA

by Ken Derstine
March 3, 2016
Also blogged at Defend Public Education!

President Obama signing the Every Child Succeeds Act

There is an aspect of ESSA that I fear is being overlooked by those examining this complex bill, but is the thief in the night that will advance the corporate reform agenda. That is the aggressive promotion of states rights in ESSA. This is a special project of Senator Lamar Alexander as the article linked below details.
 
States rights has historically been the most reactionary aspect of the U.S. Constitution. The authors of the Constitution needed the slaveocracy to support the new Constitution, so they instituted the "Three-Fifths Compromise" which gave the slave states the power to continue slavery and count slaves as part of their state representation. This gave the slave states a third more seats in Congress and dominance of the Supreme Court for a century.

Though the Civil War and the 13th and 14th Amendments ended the slavocracy, states rights was the main method of continuing slavery under another name through the maintaining of Jim Crow segregation and opposition to the federal government enforcing civil rights.

So it is disturbing to see states rights being a central plank of ESSA. Thirty years of neo-liberal federal education policy, especially promoted by Bill Clinton, has made people think that, most recently, the legacy of Arne Duncan, to be continued by John King, means we must return to state control of education. The corporate reform agenda promoted by the federal Department of Education will now be promoted in each states' Department of Education.

Look at this article in Ed Week last week:

NGA Organizes Coalition of Education Groups to Monitor ESSA Implementation | State EdWatch - Ed Week

The Coalition listed in the article includes:

In addition to the NGA, the network is made up of the National Association of State Boards of Education, the National School Boards Association, AASA, the School Superintendents Association, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and the National PTA. 

President Obama shaking Randi Weingarten's hand at the signing of ESSA.

Lamar Alexander is behind Obama.

Why are the AFT and NEA joining with the National Governors Association and the anti-Opt Out National PTA among others in promoting this reactionary policy? This gives the corporate privatizers unregulated powers within states to privatize public education through such organizations as ALEC. This can be seen in Chicago where the Chicago Public Schools Board is being blocked by the Illinois State Charter School Commission from closing three charter schools.

CPS, CTU unlikely allies against state charter commission | Chicago Sun Times

The abolition of the Department of Education has long been the goal of the extreme right in America precisely over the issue of states rights. What needs to be changed is the political leadership at all levels of government. The neo-liberal agenda has been the wolf in sheep's clothing which has taken us backward.

We need a federal Department of Education free of all corporate interests and headed by experienced educators and academics with knowledge in child psychology and pedagogy which will advance the development of a democratic society.


Also see:

Lamar Alexander's ESSA: Room for John King, but not Opting Out
duetch29 - March 2, 2016

WARNING Connecticut–They are coming for your schools and your democratic rights!
Wait What? | March 6, 2016
If you think states rights means more local control, read this!

My Chief Concerns about ESSA
deutsch29 - March 7, 2016

Cashing in on Kids: 172  ALEC Education Bills Push Privatization in 2015
Truthout - March 9, 2016

This is where right-wing radicalism is festering: While the nation watches the presidential race, there are scary things happening at state legislatures
Salon - March 13, 2016

On Line...All the Time?
Educationalalchemy - March 15, 2016
Morna McDermott on how ALEC is promoting CBE in state legislatures.

Non-Transparent Delaware
Exceptional Delaware - March 17, 2016
Delaware is another example that the states rights provisions of ESSA are a reactionary attack on education.

ESSA is Designed to Quell Opting Out. It Won't Work.
deutsch29 - March 18, 2016

Pearson: ESSA Won't Hurt Us a Bit (But Karma Might): AFT, Pearson, and Karma
Curmudgation - March 21, 2016 



With Friends Like These... | Defend Public Education! - July 20, 2015

With Friends Like These... redux | Defend Public Education! - August 3, 2015

Philadelphia charters show the way to CBE

A report on a Philadelphia TV news show about what is in the works with Competency Based Education. Since there is greatly reduced whole class instruction, there is no collaboration, no debate, no critical thinking. It's like farm factories which engineer their plants and animals to create the desired product for the market. The Philadelphia School Partnership has a portfolio of schools that are experimenting with CBE.

Philadelphia charter hands over tracking student progress to Mission Control | CBS Philly

Also see:
Netflix Billionaire Reed Hastings' Crusade to Replace Public School Teachers With Computers | Alternet

Why the push for nonfiction.

Reed Hastings has said that "software was best for teaching 'subjects with correct answers,' but 'it will take 5 to 10 years of hard work to figure out' how to use it to teach an interpretive subject like history or literature. 
Correct. And this, I assume, is why there has been such an emphasis on non-fiction and less encouragement of fiction in recent years, despite overwhelming evidence that fiction is highly beneficial in many ways (see eg http://skrashen.blogspot.com/2015/10/fiction-hottest-topic-of-all.html  for a short review).  More teaching using computers > more profits for technology companies.

Posted as a comment on:
http://www.alternet.org/comments/education/netflix-billionaire-reed-hastings-crusade-replace-public-school-teachers-computers#disqus_thread

Levine and Danielson to Open New CBE Franchise

 The academy for teaching and learning is backed by more than $7 million, including $2 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, $3 million from the Amgen Foundation, and $2 million from the Wilson foundation. Mr. Levine said he hoped to eventually raise $30 million for the effort.

Art Levine has been a shill for corporate efficiency in educational leadership preparation for a long time, but with a new federal pot of gold about to be cracked open by ESSA, he and Charlotte Danielson, with the help of Bill Gates and some other vulture philanthropists, have staked their own claim on some of the teacher education territory that has been set aside for fattening the next generation's children of the poor.

Levine's scam will be centered at MIT, nonetheless, with some of the world's most geeky tech wizards keeping his kitchens humming.  As a direct competitor of Relay, Levine hope to trim the edges from Doug Lemov's square patty and add some a delicious breading and garnish provided by Charlotte Danielson's kitchen. Otherwise, Levin's new store promises to be the same pre-packaged fare that no one with an option for a real education would ever go for.  As with other fast fare, however, these products will be dirt cheap and readily available in poor communities where other sources of educational nutrition are not found or affordable.

And despite Levine's insistence that his kitchens will be trying out new recipes and sharing them around the country, his ingredients, outcomes, and methods are prescribed by those funding his kitchens.  Good luck, Art, Charlotte, and Bill. You'll need it.

Do take the 12 minutes required to hear Levine lay it all out.  From June 2015: